A key ASEAN hub
Thailand 4.0 could take off very quickly, and Taiwanese businesses aren’t the only ones eager to become involved. Business leaders from around the world are rubbing their hands in anticipation. Stanley Kang, a second-generation Taiwanese businessperson who has been in Thailand for 38 years, says that most of the Taiwanese firms that invested in Thailand in the past were doing so to take advantage of low production costs, but the big international corporations investing nowadays are focused on ASEAN’s huge ten-nation market and Thailand’s diverse economy, especially its highly developed travel services, medical tourism, and creative and cultural industries. He argues that Taiwanese firms might as well put their own unique knowhow to use in finding business opportunities.
Kang notes that Thailand’s customs, history and location provide advantages to Taiwanese companies hoping to use the nation as a base of operations from which they can develop ASEAN’s market of 640 million consumers.
First, Thailand is a largely Hinayana Buddhist nation with a gentle and tolerant people. Second, Thailand is the only Southeast-Asian nation not to have been colonized by the Great Powers and was also relatively unscathed by World War II. Moreover, the country’s political stance is moderate.
In addition, unlike its neighbors Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, it doesn’t face border pressure from China or India. It is also central to ASEAN as an important transshipment hub for Europe and Asia. Finally, ships traveling the Maritime Silk Road portion of China’s “One Belt, One Road Initiative” will certainly pass through its harbors.
Thailand plans to support its “Thailand 4.0” initiative with a high-speed rail system connecting Bangkok to three nearby international airports.